December 23 - Bos LGB OAK

Wow what a crazy day.  Dad flew up at 6am this morning to hang out with me.  I met him at Donna's (his favorite place) for breakfast.  Around 11, I was assigned a trip so I got ready and then dad and I wandered out for a little while until it was time for my flight.

Trip:
BOS: LGB: OAK then 20 hour layover in Oakland and the reverse trip tomorrow, ending with a red eye back.

The trip turned into a nightmare when we landed.  After we made the, "welcome to Long Beach" speech... the Captain comes on the PA saying "sorry everyone, there was last minute weather to pop up and we had to divert to Ontario."  Apparently, that's Ontario California.  I didn't know that was a place.  People were pissed.  We ended up sitting in Ontario for 2 hours.  Half of our plane decided to find their own way home from Ontario and 80 out of 150 people eventually took off with us to Burbank.  From Burbank, the airline provided them all buses to LGB.  I have no idea what happened to passengers with connecting flights.

We also had a couple in the middle of the cabin who only spoke Chinese.  When we got to Ontario, they didn't understand what was happening and kept trying to hand us their passports.  I used google translate to communicate for them to stay on the plane.  I spent the next 2 hours trying to find someone who could translate for me.  We called China Air, American Airlines, asked passengers, text friends and finally posted on facebook.  A complete stranger from another airline called me and was able to speak to the passengers.

The night was crazy, but my crew handled it amazingly.  The Captain kept coming out and telling everyone what was happening and that he was working on things.  The In Flight Crew was working hard to really help passengers.  It was great to see such good teamwork.

Now tomorrow, we have to take a van Burbank to Long Beach, Deadhead to Oakland, work the Oakland Long Beach flight and then work the red eye from LGB back to Boston.  it is going to be a Long day, BUT I just realized it turns this trip into a 20 hour 2 day trip, which is OK by me.

December 17, 1014

Finding time to blog is harder for me than I was expecting.  After a crazy day, I want to sit back, relax and unwind... not relive my crazy day.  Today was one of those such days.

Rewind.  I bid for a 3 day trip (per diem adds up).  Yesterday was rough because we had 4 flights.  BOS: BUF: BOS: JAX: FLL  Long day, but most of our passengers were nice and we had a little break between BOS: JAX so we were able to grab food and relax.

Once in Ft. Lauderdale, my friend Kayla picked me up from the airport and we went out for dinner and drinks with a few of her friends.  One of my favorite perks of this job is being able to see friends and family.  We had a great time at SouthPort, but I probably had a few too many beers (or I was too exhausted) because I don't remember much of what I said, whoops.  I hate getting old.

Today, Kayla and I ran errands.  We stopped for breakfast and had the craziest experience.  I feel like all of my blog posts get Super long and I'm not sure how to stop that, because when I tell a story... I think it's pretty good.  So here's our breakfast story:

We stop into a diner I found on Yelp.  Great reviews.  We walk in thinking, "this looks perfect".  A mildly attractive waiter comes over, leaning in pretty close by Kayla's face and welcomes us to the restaurant while staring very intently at us as he talks.

He comes back to take our drink orders.

Me:  "can I have a decaf coffee?
Waiter:  "sure, why are you drinking decaf?"
Me:  "I've been trying to give up caffeine"
Waiter:  "Really?  me too!"  >high five< "and I gave up alcohol and sex.  I've been celibate for a while now.  Are you spiritual?"
Me thinking... well that's a weird question... and did he just tell me he's celibate???  What does "spiritual" mean exactly?  AND if I say 'no', he's going to feel like a dummy, so I say, "Sortof.  I mean, I read a book on Mindfulness recently."  Ok, so the book I read was about meditation, but same thing.  Sort of.

Well mentioning "mindfulness" was the wrong thing to do.  He was So Excited I knew about it.  He invited me to a mindfulness seminar with him tonight and then told me all about this 3 level program he's doing.  "But I'm not allowed to even tell you this much about it"  He asked me if I'd like to go through "level 1" with him.  Meanwhile, poor Kayla is like "um, can I just get my coffee?"  A few minutes later, a guy comes in selling roses (all of this sounds like something from the Twilight Zone to me as I'm writing it), he asks if any of us would like to buy some and the waiter says, "I would, but that would be too forward."

Coffee finally comes.

The waiter comes back to ask for our order.  Kayla asks him, "should I get the black bean omelet or the healthy choice omelet."  Again, this must've been the wrong thing to say.  He delves into, "I am a biology major and a wellness coach.  i know my body from top to bottom on a molecular level.  like with a car, you can give it synthetic oil or cheap oil and they both do the same thing, but I give my body synthetic oil because i know it's better for me."  I had to stop myself from saying... "so.... should she get the black bean omelet or the healthy choice one".  They proceeded to have this lengthy discussion about which omelets were better and she finally ordered the black bean one.  I'm still confused as to which omelet equated to the synthetic oil.

After we eat, I go to the bathroom.  When I come out, I see the waiter standing in the corner by the bathroom and I think "why is he standing in that corner, there's nothing there."  Until he approaches me and I realize why.

Waiter:  "Next time you're in Ft. Lauderdale, would you like to get together?"
Me:  "Oh thank you, but I'm dating someone."
Waiter:  "Well it could be casual."
Me:  "Maybe you can give me the information on the mindfulness seminar."
And I walk away.

Kayla is sitting at the table, wondering why the waiter never came to get our credit cards to pay lol.  When he gets back from asking me out, she walks up to the counter to pay.  He hands her her card back and then completely side swipes her to walk over to the table to hand me my card.  Well... he had printed out his phone number and wanted to hand it to me.  He told me to text him for info on the seminar.  Lol.  Nice.

Weirdest lunch ever!!!!

Kayla and I went to Walmart after we laughed hysterically about the whole situation for a good 15 minutes and we shopped for ugly sweater stuff for at least an hour.  We grabbed a bunch of stuff and headed home to work on her costume.  Here are a few pictures!  All in all a Great layover.  See, now this post is Forever long and I didn't even talk about the absolutely insanely crazy flights we had today!  I'll have to save that post for tomorrow.

April 1 Costa Rica Here We Come!!

When I talked with Kassidy the other day, she sounded super surprised that I’m still planning to come.  Apparently this job is changing my habits some because she said it was very unlike me to just jump up and go somewhere.  Lol, no wonder I’m driving my friends and family crazy.

After a long, restless night, Justin took me to the airport at 6am for my flight.  I packed a hiking backpack with a lot more stuff than I intended on bringing and I dropped all of my other luggage off in the Crew Lounge so I can go straight back to Boston on Friday.  The flight was booked 52 out of 150, so Duke and I got our own rows.  I intended to sleep, but started watching Saving Mr. Banks on tv and stayed awake the whole time.  The movie wasn’t worth it, although Tom Hanks is a fantastic actor.

We arrive in San Jose around 8am and catch the shuttle to National Car Rentals.  It was such a rip off!  When Duke booked the car online, it said the total was $56 for the week.  Come to find out, it is mandatory to purchase insurance of $24 PER DAY!  What???  The total came to $133, but we figured it was still cheaper than the cost for both of us to take the shuttle to and from Uvita.  So very unhappy about the situation, we took the car anyways.  A Prius.  Awesome.

Next hurdle, the car place gave us a horrible map.  Most of the roads in the city were not labelled on the map.  (I felt inclined to include a picture of it in this post.) To make things worse, most of the roads IN the city weren’t labelled on the streets either!!  It took us an hour to figure out how to get headed in the right direction and we took a little detour through the mountains.  Wow, the roads were curvy!

Once outside the city, street signs were much better and it was easier to decide which way we needed to go.  We stopped to take pictures once or twice.  The mountain roads were beautiful, although scary.  We stopped at Backyard Burger for lunch.  A poor decision.  The food was expensive and not good.  We spent $45 on a burger, a burrito, 2 coronas and 2 waters.  Ouch. 

The other thing that we can’t figure out is the currency.  It’s $500 Colones to $1.  So when the bill comes it’s 20,000 colones.  Very weird to get used to.

Eventually, we made it to the Tucan Hotel and to Kassidy!!  I’ll post more about the Hotel later.  We dropped our things off, changed clothes and headed to the beach for sunset.  A guy, Joel, joined us for the ride to the beach as well.  We hung out on the beach, played in the water and watched a beautiful sunset.  At night, Kassidy cooked a delish dinner for us, we had some wine and then went to bed soon after. 

Duke at the hostel:

Thus ended our first day in Costa Rica.

Trip to Costa Rica? Why yes, I think I shall

So my best friend, Kassidy, decided to take a 3 month job working in a hostel in Costa Rica.  She invited me to come, so I think I shall do just that!    My friend, Steve, was planning to come with me and asked if we could go the first week of April, so that’s what I’ve planned.  Steve and I would’ve had a blast living all hippy style, but unfortunately, he had to back out though.  A few days later, my brother, Duke, asked “what are you doing the first week of April”.  So now, Duke and I are planning to go to Costa Rica together for a week.  We’ve never travelled together, so I’m not really sure how it’s going to go.  It also seems like neither of us are planners because we didn’t talk about the trip again until a day or two beforehand.

I had planned to take a bus from San Jose to Uvita, where Kassidy is working.  The bus costs $35 each way.  Duke thought it would be a better idea to rent a car and Kassidy said it would be helpful if we had one so we didn’t have to walk everywhere.

So there’s what I have of a plan:  I’m going to Costa Rica on April 1 with my brother, we’re renting a car and then driving to see my bestie in Uvita.  End of plan.

March 19, 2014 Why can't I keep my mouth shut sometimes??

First day of a 6 day reserve block and the day after St. Patrick’s Day.  I get put on 7am airport standby (ASB).  6 hours in the crew lounge.  Awesome.  At least it’s in the morning because anything in the afternoon means I’ll only get used for a red eye.  There’s a “quiet room” in the crew lounge that has 6 big comfortable reclining chairs in it.  I went in and slept the entire 6 hours of my ASB haha!  It was a nice way to recover from my binger of a last week.

At 1am there was a business meeting in the crew lounge, so I decided to stay for it.  They pay us to stay for these meetings, but they’re 3 hours long so I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  Oh well, I was there.

The meeting was informative.  I took notes.  During the part where they were discussing new products, I couldn’t help it, I had to raise my hand and point out that one of our new offerings has a very inappropriate name.  It went something like this, but with a lot more studdering because I get shy talking about inappropriate sexual words, esp around the managers of my company.

Me: “Hi, I wanted to just make a point that I think you guys should look up the meaning of the word Skeeter.  Check it out, urbandictionary.com.  Every time I hand the cookies to younger people, they giggle and I can’t help but giggle too.  So I think you all should just check out the meaning of the word.” 

Speaker:  “what does it mean?”

Me:  “I can’t say.  Just look it up, urbandictionary.com”

Everyone in the room busts out their cellphones and as people read the definition, a subtle laughter fills the room.  The head of airports (all of our locations) looks at me and gives a thumbs up, the Boston supervisors are all laughing hysterically, and my face turns bright red.

March 16 - St Patricks Day!

This has been the funnest week ever!  Got to see Justin, went to Nashville, then DC, now to Boston to celebrate St. Patty's Day!!

Washington Monument from Plane

I met up with some friends from college and went to watch the Boston St. Patrick's Day Parade.  I love parades, it was great.

Why do i always look so short :-(

After, we walked down to Whiskey Priest for some drinks.  About the time my college friends were ready to go home, one of my flight attendant friends met me!  We almost went home after Whiskey Priest, but Jessa convinced me to go down to Fanueil Hall area.  What a crazy night!!

Obnoxious people we made friends with at the Priest.

um, jessa.....?

We talked some bouncers into letting us into a bar for free and enjoyed dancing silly all night.  Then some guys decided to kidnap us.  One dude threw me over his shoulder and then let go!!!  (notice, his hands are up in the air in this photo).  Our bouncer "friend" came over and almost killed the guys, then kicked them out "these arn't those kinda girls, you be f***in respectful" (imagine heavy boston accent).  That was pretty crazy, but we had a blast anyways.

I'm so sexy when I dance

March 15 Race Day!!

Boy we had to be up early, but fortunately, everyone had their shoes and train tickets and we were ready to go!!

It was freezing cold outside before the sun came up!  I wasn't happy we got there so early ugh and then all of the girls had to pee before the race so we were late to the starting line.  ugh.

We all run different paces so after the race finished, we all split up.  it was pretty tough finding everyone afterwards, but some how we managed.  I def struggled through the race because I didn't train well, but i finished third out of our group.  not bad.

The race sent us past all the major monuments and was a beautiful run.  My favorite thing was all the people sitting on the side walks watching us and drinking.  at mile 12, people started setting out beer and margarita's for us to grab as we ran by.  I was tempted, but knew I wouldn't make the last mile if I had a drink lol.

After the race, we all went to brunch.  I had too many mimosas, but it was yummy.

In the evening, we met up for dinner and celebrated one girls birthday.

March 14 - Marathon Expo and Exploring DC

We got up and went to the Expo on Friday and then went sightseeing.  I’ve really enjoyed spending girl time this week.  We had a lot of fun and took tons of pictures. 

We took Uber back to the hotel and then walked to CVS to buy snacks and other things we would need before the race.  Back at the hotel, Morgan and I were preparing our things for the race on Saturday:  put our bibs on our shirts, lay out our clothes, put everything in our race bag, etc… when Morgan realized she only has one shoe!!!!  We start frantically looking everywhere.  The other girls come to help us.  It’s 8pm the day before our race and Morgan has no shoe!  We call around to shoe stores and One is still open and has her same shoes, but it’s 30 mins away.  The two of us race downstairs and jump in a taxi to ride 20 minutes to the shoe store.  As we are pulling up, Morgan Then realizes she forgot her credit card because she packed it with her race day stuff.  Lmao.  Seriously, she was a mess.  Fortunately, the store stayed open a few extra minutes so we could rush in and buy the shoe (I had my card).  Ohhhh Morgan.

March 13 - Headed to DC for Rock N Roll Half Marathon

March 13

I had all day in Orlando on Thursday, which was nice.  I had a lot of things to catch up on.  I finished up and mailed out a corporate tax return I’ve been working on and did a few other things.  I had no idea what to pack for our 3 days in DC, so I packed a Ton.

I headed to the airport in the evening and showed up at the gate as they were about to close the door.  Walking down the jet bridge, I see Morgan and the girls.  They were positive I wasn’t going to make it on the flight.  Whoops.  Sometimes I cut it a little too close.  In my defense, they were closing the doors 15 minutes early. 

In the middle of boarding, Morgan says “do you want some of my margarita???”  I was in uniform, so I just froze.  Uhhh…. No, of course not.  Flight was good and then we took Uber to our hotel.  I’ve never Ubered before, but it was a good experience.  An suv picked us up at the hotel and all 6 of us girls road to the hotel.  We got the hotel on Groupon and I was very surprised at how nice it was.  Le Meridian in Arlington.  The beds were Very comfortable.

 Our room...

We changed and then went out for dinner and a few drinks in Georgetown.  It was really empty and all of the bars closed at like 12, which I was surprised about in a decent size city.

March 11 - 12

The girls wanted me to catch the 6am flight to Nashville.  Agh, I couldn’t do it.  Getting back from a 4 day trip is exhausting enough, but add on the late nights… I was beat.  I planned to catch the SouthWest 10:55 flight instead. 

Well, I woke up at 10:15.  Whoops.

Juli flew over on a red eye from California to Boston, met Nicole and they both took the 7:30am flight from Boston to Nashville.  Super hardcore if you ask me.  The next flight available for me wasn’t till almost 2.  I have no idea why no one flies over the lunch hour, but they don’t.  I got in around 4 and met the girls at the bar.  Listening to music at all of the bars was amazing.  They even had live music in the airport.  We had some drinks at the bar and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.  All of the artists are so talented, I have no idea how some make it big and others don’t. 

On Wednesday, we eventually made it downtown for lunch and were the only people sitting in a bar called Swinging Door.  It was fun because we got personal attention from the singers, who were great.

I had my first bloody mary.  I still couldn’t choke it down.  I’m determined to learn to like them.

The girls decided to stay another night, but I really wanted to see Justin again, so I flew home late in the evening. 

When I called to list myself for the 8:30 SouthWest flight, they told me there were only 2 seats available (this was an hour before the flight).  I pay $25 for a taxi to the airport, show up to the gate and find out it’s overbooked by 3 seats!  I was really stressed that I wasn’t going to make it home.  Another winter storm was coming through the North East so several SW flights were cancelled, so the airport was hectic and I had to wait until the plane was completely boarded to find out if I was going to get a seat.  I was preparing myself to sleep in the airport because I’d already paid $50 in taxi fees on this trip, I could not afford to spend any more.  Fortunately, I made it on board at the last minute and was extremely happy to be on board.

Note for future travel:  make sure the hotel has easy transportation to and from the airport or rent a car.

March 10 - Nashville Bound

I’m finally taking advantage of my flight benefits and I’m having a blast.  Two of my girlfriends told me they were taking a trip to Nashville.  Well, why not?!?  I love country music.

I got back from a 4 day trip on the 9^th at 11pm and then went to have drinks with some of my roommates.  Having so many roommates (basically 24 people) is trouble for me because I’m always staying up too late and I tend to hang out rather than be responsible!  I stayed out till 4am, oops.  When getting back from a trip, it’s hard for me to whine down anyways… or so I tell myself.

I was planning to fly straight to Nashville from Boston, but was missing Justin, so I jumped on a flight Monday morning to Orlando. 

Getting up for my flight was insanely difficult.  The flight was completely booked so we had to sit on jump seats.  Not the most comfortable way to ride for 3 hours and I always feel in the way while the crew was doing service.

Justin went in to work early and left around 2:30 so we could spend the whole day together.  It was great.  We went to Mills Market for lunch and sat outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.  Then we went to a park near the house and laid in the grass by a lake for a lovely nap.  I love naps outside.  At night we just laid on the couch and watched a movie together, Captain Philips, which was excellent.  We went to bed around 1am.  Sheesh, I was exhausted, but it was so nice to be home.

February 27 - First Non-Work Trip!!

I came back to Boston a day early so my friend, Katie, and I could go to New York City for the night.  She had a friend whose band was playing there, so we went to see him play.  We got a place to stay on airbandb.com.  So excited to take our first non-work trip!!! 

If I were to summarize the night it’d go like this:

“Got searched at the airport, met a guy in a fox jacket, saw a concert, took fireball shots, ate subway, was taken to a back alley to use the restroom, dug through the garbage for my lost earing, drank Demon’s Water, then jumped out of a cab without paying…”  fortunately, we survived.

Here’s the detail:

We flew over, not in uniform (my idea) and were both stopped at security.  Katie left a water bottle in her bag.  I had a giant sized hair spray – it had to be pulled/trashed and then my bag re-scanned.  Then, the buttons on my pockets set off the metal detector so I had to be patted down.  Katie opted out of the metal detectors, so had to go through a full pat down.  Lol.  Def going to wear uniforms next time!

In JFK, we caught the train, rode an hour and got to our room in East Side.  Picked up the key from a deli across the street, grab some liquor and walk to our pad.  When we couldn’t get the door open, a guy with a feather in his ear opens it for us, “Hi!  You must be staying in the other room.”  We have one room in a two bedroom apartment.  I knew it was awesome when one of the two guys staying at the pad walked out in a jacket shaped like a fox.  Seriously.

I haven’t been dressed up to go out in so long, it was fun getting ready!  We wanted to go shopping and stuff beforehand, but ran out of time.

The concert was good.  The band played really well and we met a few weirdo’s in the crowd.  We chatted with Katie’s friends for a bit after the concert, then bounced around from bar to bar, having drinks, talking with people and enjoying ourselves. 

At the end of the night, we were both feeling pretty good and decided to hope in a cab back to our sleeping place.  Unfortunately for the driver, we pulled up our address on the GPS.  “Sir, you’re passing the street.  Ok, you can turn at this next one.  Turn!  You’re passing it again, turn!”  Our fare went from $4 to $7.50 and I started yelling at the guy, “we’re getting out of this taxi, you’re trying to rip us off. I told you to turn and you didn’t.  You’re driving way past our place!”  About then, I see a flash.  Apparently, he had a camera in the back.  Not sure the point of that, but we jumped out anyways.  And This is why I hate cabs.

When we made it back to the airport the next day, we both took a sign of relief…. And then laughed because we both felt the same way “ahhh, safe at home”.

As we boarded the plane, it started to snow.

 

February 21 - Staying awake for over 30 hours

I was on home reserve today, from 12 to 12.  For some reason I woke up at 8:30 and started trying to be productive for the day.    As someone on reserve, you just can’t help but to watch the OpenTime board and the Reserve Grid all day, checking it every few minutes. 

The OpenTime Board:    It tells you what trips are available to be assigned to a person on Reserve.  Things go into “Open Time” if someone calls in sick or drops the trip.

The Reserve Grid:  Tells you how many people are available on reserve for the day, how many days they’re available for, and what order they will be called.  Most of us think the assignments are completely arbitrary, but the assignments are Supposed to go in order of the grid.

I’m still not sure what I did all day.  I probably could’ve completed an entire tax return during the day, but somehow I managed not to.  I tried to take a nap around 4:30 because at this point in the day, if you haven’t been called, it’s pretty guaranteed that you’re going to get a red eye turn – either San Juan, Santo Domingo, or Santiago.    I layed down for an hour.  At 6:30 I got a call from scheduling that I was being put on Airport standby at 8:30pm.  Great. 

Once at airport standby, I tried sleeping, just in case.  All of the ASB people jump when a cell phone rings.    A trip popped into open time.  San Juan red eye.  Me and another girl knew one of us would be called for it so we both sat there hoping it wouldn’t be us.  Guess, what, I got the stupid trip.

I’d been up since 8:30 am and wouldn’t be back to Boston until 10am the following morning.  My crew was awesome.  The girls were really sweet and nice to talk with.  When we got to SJU, I was in a haze from being tired.  I thought about calling out Fatigue, but I didn’t want to cancel the flight for the passengers.  Then once we got all of the passengers on board, we were delayed for take-off.  I started to cry in the back and took off my eye glasses when one of the lenses popped out!  Agh, seriously can this day get any worse!!

We got back to Boston around 10 and I headed back to my crashpad.  I didn’t want to take a nap because I was hoping if I stayed up all day that it would help me get back on a normal sleeping schedule.  Jennifer and I went to the farmers market, which was Amazing!  I need to be more prepared next time so I know what I need to buy.  

Feb 19

Had a fun night in Orlando.  We had game night at our house and a bunch of people came over.  We played Quelf.  It was interesting.  Here are a few clips from our night.

Two people had to use their left hands and draw a rhino and an elephant arm wrestling ... who's is better?

Best argument ever.

February 13-14

Another crazy day on reserve.  There's more winter storms, so all of the crashpad roomies were home today.  It was so much fun having everyone there!!  In the morning, we all went to breakfast at Donna's.  The snow is a little crazy, but it makes it even more snugly to be home.

In the evening, we sat in the living room while I flat ironed one of the girls hair and everyone watched "Walking Dead".  I had to put headphones in because I get too scared!  It felt like a big sleep over, I love it.

The great thing about this trip is that it put me into Orlando on Valentines Day :).  We got into Orlando at midnight on Valentines, but Justin was so sweet, he came to the hotel anyways.  He brought wine and some snacks.  The pilots and other flight attendant helped me make a V-Day basket for him too haha.  It was a little ghetto, but I wasn't prepared!  We stayed up for a little bit having wine and talking, but it was a short layover, so we couldn't do too much else.

I used a heart box from some chocolates a customer gave us and packed it with all kinds of goodies from the plane and a men's magazine I found.  I thought I took a picture of it, but I guess this is all I have.

Justin's mom bought me a really nice red lip stick.  I like wearing red with my uniform.  Lipstick is the one thing we can change up, so it's fun to have 100 sticks of different shades.

(me with the lipstick)

View from my hotel on the evening of the 15.  I think this was Buffalo.  I also found a favorite new drink at the bar in Buffalo - a Pineapple Upside down Cake martini.  Mmmmm.